Maciej,Maciej wrote: ↑Tue Oct 26, 2021 4:01 am It's interesting that some phrases are characteristic of books 17-20 of the Antiquities. 2 of 5 instances of "about this time" are found in the context of the TF (one shortly before and one after). I think this is the case where Eusebius (if he indeed composed the TF) is not simply writing like Eusebius but adopting the "style" of Josephus. Whealey notes that Eusebius has "about this time" 3 times (2 in HE book VI and one in Comm Ps). Tho it's possible that he came up with this phrase fourth time, i think's it's improbable that he would do this in a context where Josephus used this phrase 2 out of 5 times. This would be a strange coincidence. Mason in the video admits that a phrase like this could be easily imitated by a forger.
Thanks for posting this. I think the only examples here that, strictly speaking, are attested in Josephus but (as far as I currently know) not in Eusebius are: "receive x with pleasure", "condemned" in the strictly legal sense, and "principal men" (not the full 'principal men among us', which is otherwise unattested in both Josephus and Eusebius) in the sense of 'leading men", but even these are a bit sketchy. I think Eusebius has "receive + true (thing)" while Josephus does not, and he has 'condemned' in the sense of physical punishment, but not as a result of a formal legal trial, and he has the single word "firsts" without "men" in the sense of leaders, but I think in the few examples where he has "first" + "men" it has the sense of "earliest men" rather than "leading men."
In my CBQ paper from 1999 I argued that Eusebius originally wrote the Testimonium for the Demonstratio and later updated it for the Ecclesiastical History, which is the version that was copied into our manuscripts of the Antiquities. That's still what I think, but I also argued that Eusebius added "receive + pleasure" and "principal men" in deliberate imitation of Josephus. By the time I wrote my 2013 "Eusebian Reading" paper I had abandoned that hypothesis because both of those are fairly minor departures from the way he writes elsewhere. there was no good reason to suggest deliberate imitation of Josephus.
I want to pose a question about your example of 'about this time'. Mason has suggested that Eusebius changed what was in Josephus' Testimonium. With the exception of εἴγε, "if indeed", where I think Mason made an error and there is no difference between our manuscripts of Josephus and Eusebius, what I think Mason means when he says that Eusebius "changed" the text is that the Demonstratio contains a different reading. He is presupposing his theory that Josephus wrote the Testimonium and Eusebius changed it in the Demonstratio but copied it more closely in the Ecclesiastical History. The same data could be explained equally well on my theory that Eusebius first wrote the Demonstratio and then rewrote it, perhaps from memory, in the Ecclesiastical History, which is the version that was copied into our texts of the Antiquities.
You argue that with regard to κατὰ τοῦτον τὸν χρόνον, 'about this time', that while Eusebius does use the phrase three times, it would be a strange coincidence for him to have used it in a context where Josephus has used it nearby (2 out of his total 5 instances). Well, maybe. It's not implausible.
But as a thought experiment, let's reverse my theory where the version of the Testimonium that was copied into the Antiquities from the Ecclesiastical History and suppose that the version from the Demonstratio was the one that got copied instead, and the wording was κατ’ ἐκεῖνον τὸν χρόνον, which also means 'about this time', instead. This is found in Ant. 3.192 and 7.117. Wouldn't defenders of authenticity then argue: what is the likelihood that a Christian interpolator happened on this rare Josephan usage that's found elsewhere only in his recounting of the biblical history, which wasn't even one of the texts of Josephus with which they were much concerned, preferring the Jewish War, Contra Apionem, and the later books of the Antiquities, 18-20, which were about the time of John the Baptist, Jesus, and James. As you can see, Eusebius did not like it and changed it to κατὰ τοῦτον τὸν χρόνον in the HE
Best,
Ken